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Tucùa
Phonology The following are consonants used in Tucùa, according to the International Phonetic Alphabet: Each letter is notated in the same way as in the IPA, with the exceptions of the phoneme 'w', which is written as 'ù' and 'q', which is written as 'c'. 'k' appears very little in Tucùa itself, being almost wholly replaced by 'c', but appears in loanwords such as 'komputr'. The following are vowels used in Tucùa: Again, most vowel phonemes are written the same way as their IPA designations, with the exception of the phoneme 'y', which is written with the letter 'è'. Phonotactics Most syllables are 'allowed' in Tucùa. The basic syllabic structure could be written as follows: ©©V(ù)©© An example of a syllable like this would be the word 'cùond', meaning 'to walk'. Stress Stress generally falls on the ultimate syllable of a root word, meaning that, in a root word (for example 'ùacobut', hippopotamus), the stress would fall as ùacoBUT. However, if the word were to take the accusative case, becoming 'ùacobute', then the stress would remain as ùacoBUTe. Some words, mainly prepositions and the like, break this rule, but it is generally true throughout the language. Grammar Word morphology Nouns Nouns inflect by case (nominative, accusative, or prepositional) and number (singular or plural). There is also a definite article, 'la' or 'laù'. An example of a regular noun ('miz' meaning man) is shown here: The only notable irregularity for nouns is with loan words such as 'komputr', the nominative plural of which is 'komputres', although the accusative and prepositional plurals remain 'komputreù' and 'komputriù'. One important thing to note is that all adjectives describing a noun come before the article (for this purpose, the 'aù' after indefinite accusative tense is considered an article); however, all prepositions come after, in the case of the prepositional case. The 'aù' used in the accusative is actually less of an article and more of an indication of the separation between the accusative and nominative (or, sometimes, indirect object), as the Tucùa sentence has the word order Object-Subject-Verb. All indirect objects, i.e. those in prepositional case when it is not used as genitive, appear after the accusative in the sentence. For example, the following sentence can be formed: 'Sopre te aù pùodi la ur miz la è fate.' = The man saw his friend at the store. This can be broken up into the following: *Sopr-e = friend, accusative case *Te = his *Aù = accusative case separator *Pùod-i = store, prepositional case *La = definite article *Ur = at *Miz = man *La = definite article *È = past tense indicator *Fat-e = see, 3rd person singular conjugation The prepositional case can also be used to indicate possession when used in conjunction with the possessive adjective 'te', meaning his, her, or its. In this way, short phrases such as 'sopr te mizi la' can be formed, this one meaning the man's friend, or literally friend his man the. The verb 'a' The verb 'a' (to be) is a special verb in Tucùa because it doesn't conjugate. It takes other tenses by combining in a variety of ways with the tense markers 'è', 'ad', or 'fùo'. This change is demonstrated in the table below: Regular verbs Regular verb conjugation in Tucùa derives from an infinitive (doubling as an imperative), which takes suffixes for person and number in present tense and then one of three (or a combination) of tense markers, which appear before the verb as separate words. The present tense conjugation is shown below with the verb 'cùond' (to walk): From these basic conjugations, the following other tenses can be derived: These can be formed into a system of other conjugations, making for a total of nine: While most tenses are pretty much straightforward, the conditional is unique in that it is almost solely used with the phrase 'cùi... cùi...', which means if... then.... For example, in the following sentence: 'Cùi tùite aù ta fùo dege, cùi ta aù ma fùo somem.' = If he would make food, then I would eat it. (Theoretically, as 'ta' is a gender-neutral pronoun, this could also mean I would eat him, but the context determines that the speaker is referring to the food.) The breakdown of this sentence is as follows: *Cùi = if... *Tùit-e = food, accusative case *Aù = accusative separator *Ta = he, she, it (in this case, he) *Fùo = conditional marker *Deg-e = make, 3rd person conjugation *Cùi = then... *Ta = him, her, it (in this case, it... or maybe him) *Aù = accusative separator, also marks 'ta' as accusative in case ambiguous *Ma = I *Fùo = conditional marker *Som-em = eat, 1st person conjugation The 'fùo's could be changed to multiple things to change the meaning. If they were each changed to 'fùeùe', it would mean that, if someone had made food in the past (but they didn't), the speaker now had decided that he or she would have wanted to eat it. Conversely, if they were each changed to 'efùo', it would mean that, if someone had made food in the past (but they didn't), then at that time the speaker was sure to have eaten it. If they were changed to 'fùad', it would signify that, if someone makes food (which they might), then the speaker currently feels they would eat it; if it was 'atefùo' then the speaker would eat it later, even if not now. Finally, if each one was 'fùofùo', then the food being made is an impossible or nigh-impossible scenario. Adjectives Adjectives, as stated previously, are placed after the noun but before the definite article or 'aù' and any prepositions. Adjectives describing a plural noun take the ending -a; aside from that, there is no adjectival inflection, as they do not take case endings. Personal pronouns There are six classes of personal pronouns, one for each person and number. These personal pronoun categories include a nominative or prepositional pronoun, an accusative pronoun (just the nominative with the 'aù' particle), and two possessive pronouns, one used alone with the verb 'a', the other as an adjective before a possessed object or, in the case of 'te', before any possessive. Here is a table of all twenty-four pronouns: